Walter osthoit



June 2, 1931. w, OSTHQFF 1,807,703

METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR SINGEING TEXTILE FABRICS Filed Nov. 19, 1929 FgA M/Zlery? Patentedl June 2, '1931 UNITED# STATES PATENT OFFICE.

WALTER os'rnorr, ornAnMEN, 'ennisnzAisrirY METHOD or AND APPARATUS ron. SINGEING TEXTILE FABmos Application filed November 19, 1929,-Seria1 No. 408,203, and in Germany August 9, 1.939.l

In order to increase the economy of singeing burners' the applicant has already -proposed, in hisv prior patent, speciications',' combustible of the burn-- mixing the,gaseous or vaporous 5 before it emerges from the mouth er; with approximately the'v total quantity of air necessary for combustion, so that the combustible mixture lies closely belowr the explosive limit. In this ff-:ay a sharp, non- ]o luminous (blue) 'jet of in the combustion of asiied or vapourized heavy oil and considerzile progress is made in the economical working of the singeing process. A By means of the present invention this progress hasnow been considerably ad vanced, inasmuch as, ent invention,J not only is the total quantity of oxygen necessary A to the combustible before the formation of the flame but a considerable excess of oxygen is supplied in addition with the primary air, which excess of oxygen is heated to a high temperature in the flamel itself and combines actively with the textile fibres to be singed and effects their combustion likewise in the form of ablue or completely invisible Bunsen llame.

In consequence of the extra-ordinarily'large admixture of primary air or oxygen the combustion of the gaseous or vapourous fuel supplied takes place with small iame. Preferably,therefore,the corresponding combustion chamber is reduced in size to a hithertounusual extent, so that the walls of the combustion chamber approach close to the mouth ofthe burner on both sides. Thel combustion of the fuel supplied there'- fo're takes ,place in'an exceedingly small space, and this reduction inthe siie of the combustion chamber at the same affords the possibility of using`the glowingnsurface of the walls,v for ignitingr the combustible.l

Owing to the great excess of air the combustible is no longer capable of igniting in an open ame is obtained evenaccording to the 4pres# for combustion supplied a quite surprisingly proved.

flame and supporting the comb ustion. Atv

the same time a 'strong concentration 'of heat takes place in this small combustion chamber, while radiation losses on the become extraordinarily small.

Adjacent to thisnarrow combu ber for the combustible which is it there is then a second combusti which is several times wider in strongly heated excess of oxyge other hand stion chamsupplied to on chamber which the n combines with theffibres of thefabric to be singed in the form of blue or invisible jets of flame and f burns them. This second chamber is on top but is covered at this part .ric to be singed and is preferably provided o en -by the fla at the transitional place'between the twol chambers with a constriction, of. which the highly heated edges "serve the;

igniting vthe gas-impoverished com mixture and thereby exert a favourable influpurpose of ustible ence towards supporting the primary (com- As has been confirmed by experiment, success has; been achieved by means method orby the new apparatus in making of the new obtaining thereby. an economy which is on the average about 50% the. former process. Also the sin itself is at the same in fuel used of that of geing effect time considerably im- I,

Two constructional examples of the invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which Fig. 1 is a cross-section through a preferred form ofthenew burner, and Fig. 2 a cross-section through a burner of aype generally usual which by the addition vof suitably shaped bricks is converted into 'a burner in accordance with the invention.

/ In the example illustrated in.

the known high-efficiency singein accordance with the prior speci Fig. 1,1 is burner in cations of ne with air takes place outside of the burner in a separate mixing apparatus, as has been described in applicants Patent No. 1,532,260.

`Housing 1 of the burner is several meters long. Attached to one of the longitudinal sidewalls of the housing of the burner is` a tube 9 through which enters the mixture of fuel and air, whereupon it passes through an opening 9, provided in the middle of the.

burner housing, into storing chamber 11. Arranged at theoppositelongitudinal side of the burner housing is a second tube 13, into which enters the compressed air. Tube 13 is, at both ends of the burner housing, connected with storing chamber 11 by means of square opening 14. The compressed air passing through tube 13 enters the burner housing at both of its ends and serves to regulate the width of the flame, as described in Patent N o. 1,532,260. The compressed air for regulating the width of the flame is, however, of minor importance in this case. According to the present invention, a large quantity of excess air is admixed already to the fuel before it enters tube 9, i. e. outside of the burner, whereupon this mixture of fuel and air passes into chamber 11 and from there through slot 2 into chamber 6, where the combustion takes place. Because of the extraordinary large admixture of primary air this combustion is effected in a very small space, the ignition o ccurring at the incandescent walls of the combustion chamber and being permanently maintained in an explosion-like manner.. This action is in addition considerably assisted by the projections 7 and 7a on the fire-resisting bodies 5 and 5a which become incandescent after a few seconds burning and thenact in known manner as catalyzers so as to maintain even the combustion of vapourized oils.l The upper surface of the fire-resisting bodies 5, 5a is also provided at the outer edge with an upwardly projecting rib 5 and 5a respectively, which extends close up to the path 4 of the fabric to be singed. A second considerably wider combustion chamber 6a is thereby formed, which chamber is connected by way of the gap be# tween the projections 7, 7a -with the lower combustion chamber 6. Both chambers act together as follows.

The combustion of the heating mixture takes place in the lower combustion chamber 6 from the mouth of the burner to the prljfections or edges 7, 7, and this combustion which is in the form. of a small, sharp fiame 3 is so limited that the combustion is actually comltwo divisions -6 and 6EL pleely effected below the .projections or edges l projections oredges 7, 7 only the escape of thehot gases of combustion can be' determined owing to the high temperature. Only when a fabric 4 has been placed on it and. is singed does theupper part of the burner chamber, designated by 6,, tions 7, 7Il up to the fabric 4 come into operation as combustion chamber for the fibres of the fabric to be singed.

A.Owing to the shape of the fire-resisting l bdies 5, '5a a combustion chamber having is then formed. The

heat radiated by the closely adjacent walls of the fire-resisting and badly conductingY bodies 5 and 5a accumulates in the lower combustion chamber 6 `for the heating mixture and radiation losses are reduced to an extremely small amount owing particularly to the small dimensions of the combustion chamber. A similar action occurs in theV upper part of the combustion chamber 6, where the heat of combustion of the fibres of the fabric, which otherwise is lost in the atmospheric` air at its lower surfaces, isin part accumulated by the walls of the closely adjacent fire-resisting and badly heat-conducting bodies 5 and 5a and in part usefully radiated back to the fabric.

. Above the fabric 4 and at a short distance from it there is also provided a covering hood `8, the object of which is to enable the singeing flame 3 to ignite when the fabric 4 is not travelling over it, since a small quantity of gas collects under the hood 8 and ensures that the singeing flame 3 ignites and continues to burn, owing to the hood 8 becoming incandescent, at those times and at those parts of the burner where the fabric 4 does 'not travel, for example, when the fabric which is being singed is of less width than the burner.` I

' The combustible mixture is so adjusted, for obtaining a first-class sin eing effect, that the actual flame 3, in spite o obtained by the new singeing burner, isquite unusually small and invisible. If the fire-resisting bodies 5 and 5 are removed it is not possible to cause., the combustible mixture,

after having been correctly adjusted for` singeing, to ignite owing to the composition of themixture. On holding a burning faggot in the escaping combustible mixture aquite small blue whirl of flame can scarcely be noticed. This circumstance i. e. the extremeabove the edges or projecthe high efficiency a.I width of 1 m. m'., the width of the burner i 328999 of the present applicant, so that there chamber v6 amounted to only 20 in. m., and is no difliculty in singeing by the new process the distance between the projections 7, 7a both the finest fabrics suchas Zephyr, muslin was 10 m.' m., while the upper combustion chamber 6a was 40 m. m. in height.

Fig. 2 illustrates the employment of the and voile on the one hand as well as satins,

heavy drills and velveteen on the other hand.

Exact experiments on the calorific value of fundamentals of the new invention and the the fibres to be singed and their participation fitting of the burner chamber 6 to ,ordinary -in the singeing process havegiven the folloW- gas flame singeing burners such as have been ing results:

employed for about the 'la'st 50 years cn almost all sc-called gas flame singeing burners` cms. wide, cotton.

,In this case 'there' are simply placed cn the Adjustment 36/18-36/42. burner the shaped lire-resisting stones 5, 5a, Weight of fabric to be singed in a which owing to their special shape form the ly dry condition 112 kg. two combustion 'chambers 6 and 6?. The Weight lost in singeing 1.6 kg. edges 7 7e, in contra-distinction to the form illustrated in Fig.1, are not shaped so that singed from 1000 metres of satin.

they project inwardly because a constriction The cotton has a calcrific value in an almost at the place of transition is notabsolutely completely water free condition of about 4000 necessary. Further the cover plate 8 is liat calories per kg. "i and arranged nearer tc the fabric. As will This gives for complete- 1.6 kg. of singed cotton libres easily be seen, the singeingburners hitherto a caloric value 0f 64,00 Calories for 1000 employed can easily be converted for the metre length 0f Sat-,in 85 cms wide, new method. For singeing with the new singeing burn- As has hereinbefore been explained, 1n ac- -er in acccrdancewith the invention 2.1 cubic cordance with the present invention, the commetres of illuminating gas having a calcriiic bustible mixture employed operates with .a value of about 4500 calories per cubic metre 'very considerable excess of oxygen in the prlwere required lfor 1000 metres of fabric of mary flame. This excessof oxygen is heated the kind stated above. This is a total of 9450 by the incandescent walls of the'combustion calories. These 9450 calories were used in the chamber 6 to the high temperature of the Suform of gas for singeing the fabric. In ad.

perheating produced by the accumulation ofJditin there are 6400 calories, the calorific the heat and serves the purposeof causing the v lue of the singed cfl' and burnt cotton fifabric to be sin ed to be used as a means for bres', which gives Va total ,calcrific value cf producing gas or carrying out the singeing 15850 calories.

process in' pure blue jets of flame or flame- It is not less combustion, to a desired extent accordthis numerical example that, according tc the There'were singed 1000 metres of satin 85 ,K Therefore 1.6 kg. of cotton fibres were` difficult tc recognize even from ing to the singeing effect to be produced. The new invention, fcr'1000 metres of satin cf the t amount of the excess of oxygen which is `not kind mentioned, that amount of air must consumed by the gas flame varies of course firstbe added to the illuminating gas which according to the weight and thickness and is necessary -for the complete combustion in measurement of the quantity of air to gaseous a closed combustion chamber of the 9500 calv cries of illuminating gas which is employed,

secondly however an Aexcess of air cr oxygen must also beypresent which is suflicient tov burn these 6400 calories of cotton fibres which are singed off per 1000 metres of fabric either y inv pure blue jets-of flame cr iameles'sly.

Further to this numerical result, attention 'must also be called to the fact that the loss in singeing heavy fabrics withthick fluff may amount to 5 kg., and over per 1000 metre length, and these 5 kg. of singed cotton fibres have a calorific value. of about 20,000 calories,

,55, fuel might be fairly considerable in singeing and these also must be consumed byy the exburners of the old construction without endangering the final result of obtaining a moderately useful lsingeing effect, it is necessary with the new burner to keep the errors or excess quantities of atmospheric air, i. e. ofoxygen, within the narrowest limits.

The necessary regulability of the combusti-fY ble mixture is, however ensured by employing the sc-called universal regulator according tothe German Patents No.

328393 and No. y

ample, using illuminating gas having a cal- /orifc value of about 4500calcries'per cubic metre a combustible mixture may be employed which consists of 85-95% atmospheric air and only about 15-5% illuminating gas, so that this mixture, when it flows freely out of the burner, in accordance with Fig. 1 of the drawing, can by no means be ignited because it is much too impoverished in gas for the ordinary combustion process in free atmospheric air. This extremely impoverished gas-air mixture is however absolutely essential fo'r obtaining success..

, On the-other hand these experiments also show'that, of the total amount of heat necessary for singeing a fabric, 30-60% of'the'required calorific value is made available from the fibres to be singed if the new singeing process is correctly employed, and an economy in the singeing process which was hitherto absolutely unknown is obtained.

The invention is of course not limited to the constructional example illustrated but other forms of construction are possible. In particular the combustion can be used in combination with gases readymixed and also with apparatus with which the(` gas or the vapourized fuel is first produced in the singeing machine itself. Further in addition to or instead of atmospheric air in some cases pure oxygen may be supplied for combustion.

I claim 2- 1. Method of singeing t'extile fabric with gaseous or vapourousfuel according to which a rich excess of oxygen is supplied to the fuel with the primary air before the formation of flame and the ignition of the flame is effected on glowing or incandescent walls after which a combustion of the textile fibres to be singed with non-luminous fiame is effectedbythe excess oxygen which is heated to a high'temperatnige in the flame.

y 2. Apparatus` for singeing fabric, including agas burner, a combustion chamber surrounding said burner,.aA second combustion chamber -in communication with the' first, means for supplying to said burner a combustible gas, and a supply of combustion supporting gas with the latter in exc/ess f the amount needed to support combustion of the i former, said first named combustion chamberbeing constructed and arranged with respect to said gas burner-to be heated'to incandescence thereby andsaid second named combustion chamber being constructed and arranged to substantially confine gases communicated thereto to -tlie surface of the-fabric being singed. v

3. Apparatus. for singeing fabric,` substantially as `described in c aim 2, and the theresaid second named combustion chamber havmg upwardly projecting edges over which' l the fabric'is patsed in singeing operation.

4. Apparatus for singeing fabric,substantially as described in claim 2, and the theresaid first named combustion 'chamber having one or more ports commniiicating with In'testimony whereof Iaiix my signature.

WALTER OSTHOFF. 

